Arts, Briefly; Spring Pop Concerts

By BEN SISARIO; Compiled by Lawrence Van Gelder

Published: February 3, 2006

The spring concert calendar is beginning to come into focus with some big new tours and festivals. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, a two-day smorgasbord in Indio, Calif., on April 29 and 30, will feature Depeche Mode, Tool, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bloc Party, Sigur Ros, James Blunt, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Devendra Banhart, Coheed and Cambria, Matisyahu and dozens of others. Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie will go on a joint monsters-of-indie-rock tour of North America for five weeks beginning March 22; they will come to the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on April 13 and 14. (Franz Ferdinand will also appear at Coachella, but so far Death Cab is not on the lineup.) Madonna will have a virtual collaborator for her performance at the Grammy Awards on Wednesday: the Gorillaz, below, the cartoon rap-rock group masterminded by the singer Damon Albarn, will appear in 3-D animated color. Other performers at the Grammys will include Mariah Carey, John Legend, Kanye West, Bruce Springsteen, U2 with Mary J. Blige, Coldplay and an all-star tribute to Sly and the Family Stone. Destiny's Child will perform for the last time at the N.B.A. All-Star Game in Houston -- the group's hometown -- on Feb. 19, Billboard reported. BEN SISARIO